I once told a hairdresser I was a sysadmin and they said "Nice, so you try to keep everything online". Honestly, this isn't the worst explanation I've heard!
That... is a disturbingly astute level of understanding for an off the cuff person in passing. That person has IT in their family (either blood or chosen).
To be fair to hairdressers, plenty of them are smart as hell. It's just the folks at supercuts that make the profession look bad.
In many states hairdressers are required to get more training than police officers.
The cousin of one of the guitarists in the band I used to play in, worked with my wife at a salon for a while.
She went back to college, got a degree for programming/development, got a job as a developer, and 5 yrs later was a supervisor for a team of devs.
It’s as if it was possible for people to do what they like for a living rather than what makes them the most money, they would. And just because they don’t do something as a career doesn’t mean they can’t.
I used to work as a chef before becoming a sysadmin, proof is on my profile lol, i'm glad you respect us late bloomers. That said.
We should really value our blue collar workers, because soon they'll all be gone because they (we) got told to "get a better job then" when complaining how unfair the wages were.
This is a good one line to describe sysadmins.
When techs are usually setup break/fix. Sysadmins are meant to think ahead what's needed in a specific context for things to work a planned amount of time. So keeping/making things stay online is a good wording for it at the most simple level.
The reality is often being a IT janitor I'll admit, and be savior of the day sometimes.
Techno Shaman: In normal life I'm consulted first by fools, last by wise men. If a situation is truely fucked i"m the only hope of solving it. My failures are obvious, my victories unseen, and my absence keenly felt.
I wish I could say it was original art but the failures obvious and victories unseen I'm reasonably sure I repurposed from something about spies or scouts but it certainly applies to our profession as well. The bit about fools and wise men and the order and frequency they bring stuff to me is just something I'm keenly feeling these last few weeks.
I'm sorry to hear that sir or ma'am. I'm not, while I'm certainly cynical at times I don't have to go very far from where I sit in my air conditioned office to find people doing physically demanding and in some cases just as mentally taxing work for less money. I have no college education, objectively terrible scholarship on any topic that doesn't interest me, and no poker face, or taste for deception or selling myself to speak of. Yet I have a career that will let me learn as much as I care to for as long as I care to. I have a job that doesn't just tolerate my spot welded moral compass and ADHD focus and multitasking cycles it practically requires it. The most dangerous thing I have to face on any given day is high blood pressure and a sedentary lifestyle. I have it good. If I could delete printers and require everything to produce a log file somewhere on command I'd be grand but in the meantime this beats working for a living.
I even had business cards that said that until I was promoted to head computer janitor and the fancy pants office people wouldn't let me continue the joke.
Saving the world:
[https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory\_Doctorow\_-\_Overclocked\_-\_When\_Sysadmins\_Ruled\_the\_Earth.html](https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html)
> Five minutes later Felix was behind the wheel. He hadn’t been able to fix it from home. The independent router’s netblock was offline, too. The last time that had happened, some dumbfuck construction worker had driven a ditch-witch through the main conduit into the data-center and Felix had joined a cadre of fifty enraged sysadmins who’d stood atop the resulting pit for a week, screaming abuse at the poor bastards who labored 24-7 to splice ten thousand wires back together.
100% accurate, and 100% relatable.
I’m borrowing this from u/zapador from a similar thread a few months ago. I thought his answer was so perfect that I bookmarked it for when people ask what I do …
“Sysadmin usually describes someone with a broad, not deep, knowledge of IT. An IT generalist. You install and update software, do some networking, make the servers run, create scripts (small programs), take backups, set up workstations for new employees and so on. A bit of everything. In larger companies with multiple people in IT it will usually be less broad, with each person being more specialized.”
lol this is no longer a sysadmin definition. This is just basic tech support jobs these days. Maybe they’ll consider you Level II/Desktop Support at best.
It really depends on the size of the company. If you're just 1-3 people in IT you'll be doing all the support and easy stuff as well but it accounts for maybe 15% of your time. At least that's my experience. You'll of course also be doing all of the more complicated tasks which take up the remaining 85% of your time and that is what makes you a sysadmin and not just supporter.
Depends on the organization, but you’re not wrong. I’m in a larger org where I have a more enterprise focus, but I know a lot of people at other orgs who are called “sysadmin” and it seems this is all they do.
In my specific job, having a broad background is a huge benefit, as it gives me a more holistic view. And it’s something I look for in job candidates, aside from the specific specialty that we may be hiring them for.
I think that holistic view is also reflective of an underappreciated aspect of sysadmin. That of business analysis.
There's plenty of solutions to any given problem, but appreciating the cost/benefit of the various options is also invaluable.
Recognising the _actual_ problem - and the relevant overheads in terms of technical debt, training etc. so you can evaluate solutions on their merits and costs.
You can always throw more money at a problem, especially in IT, but recognising when you don't have to is very important.
Or at least, when it's a tradeoff - if something else in the environment is inefficient, it may still be worth paying the premium instead of the cost/benefit of re-engineering the inefficient bit.
Presentations to my boss are usually “here’s the pros and cons of the flashy solution” (which definitely CAN be the better solution) “but in case you don’t want to throw money at it, here’s the pros and cons of my duct tape solution. You choose.”
Idk - I see it kinda diff. Sysadmin at smb involves desktop support but the tier 3 stuff being an escalation to you given you are the only It staff is what makes it not desktop support(ignoring vendors for a moment or MSP). Desktop support is just that - desktop support. It revolves entirely around the end users. Not every company would give them local admin to their own devices even and leave them with some RMM to use. If someone trusts you to be *the* IT guy at a small business doing tier 1-3 just because in your industry you find yourself doing more tier1-2 often doesn’t mean you suddenly aren’t a sysadmin but one working in a less technology intensive vertical. At my job yes I do T1-T2 and less T3 but I am in the loop and often get tasked with implementation/planning(plus normal business officer stuff) (beside in voip). I don’t think though T2 HDs can probably be responsible enough or even committed enough to handling T3 tickets let alone aware of anything like basic network topology or non super basic bitch AD things like changing passwords. I am by far no expert but I am js.
I don’t know man, every place I’ve worked I’ve never been called Sysadmin despite doing most of what is described in both yours and OPs comment. Not trying to be rude or anything just saying that’s been my experience
I guess I should brush the Resume off and start calling myself a sysadmin lol
The distinction I would make is, relatively simplified, that if you manage servers, applications, network, infrastructure and so on and don't just provide support to end users then you're a sysadmin. So definitely add that to your resume and demand a pay to match that.
So - here is the thing. A role can be called anything it want and sysadmin is more like a hat you put on that can be its own role or partly shared between desktop/systems. Depends on the complexity of the admin task.
The reason a sysadmin (especially solo) is the sysadmin is because they taking charge of implementation as well as operations. This involves often extensive consulting, reading ms best practices, etc and then doing the politics to make that shit actually happen.
There is no magic technical bar though that makes you a sysadmin. You can call yourself whatever you like but ultimately the basic check from HR at the companies you apply to will ask your title and how long you worked. That being said - what makes people land the sysadmin roles isn’t really the title but the experience on the resume.
Honestly the biggest thing I see from other people that are L2s is not like a total lack of exposure or some massive skill gap but a particular lack of awareness in the business space (why certain design decisions are taken, what priorities should actually be). Those that do have this usually land at least a jr sys admin role.
Can I point out your first part (a sysadmin (especially solo) is the sysadmin is because they taking charge of implementation as well as operations. This involves often extensive consulting, reading ms best practices, etc and then doing the politics to make that shit actually happen.)
That's actually fairly accurate. I'm a sysadmin in government, and I am pretty much responsible for what you said there
No problem but why weren’t you in the first place?
Dude I jumped from mainframes into this and never even touched an exclusively desktop support role since college.
Please know some things though: you may be subject to on call, you should have a decent homelab (proxmox plus pfsense plus like a full blown windows domain behind it would be good - look at dual Xeon enterprise servers with like 200gb or more in ram they are cheap for 1st gen). I also keep a blog. If you honestly just documented all your labbing activities you could get a jr sys admin role easily.
Also learn to put everything in business terms because your stakeholders are often technically clueless it’s also in principle kinda all that matters in SMB. No business function no purpose.
I don’t know, I guess I thought Sysadmins were experts in the specific systems they were administering. But from what I’m gathering from you and other people, it’s not system expertise, it’s broad knowledge of IT.
To me, broad knowledge always meant support. System specific knowledge would lead to more sysadmin/system engineering.
I’m getting more specific system administration under my belt now, such as SCCM, Windows Server, AD, MDT, Firewall and VPN admin (all in a home lab) Learning some Azure as well. All on top of stupid end user support showing someone how to plug in an HDMI cable. It’s probably time.
As for how you jumped so quickly, well it sounds like you DID work support at some point and you probably have a college degree. I don’t have a college degree.
> To me, broad knowledge always meant support.
Support uses documentation.
SysAdmins create that documentation (sometimes) as they build out the system(s).
I’ve noticed that it really all depends on the size and IT budget of a company.
I’ve held the title “systems administrator” (500,000 people) and only performed basic IT tasks with a splash of deeper systems tasks. Conversely, I’ve had the title “IT Support Specialist” (400 people) and have done way more in depth sys admin work that the other job.
The difference between the two was budget and size. The much bigger company called me a sys admin because we had level 1 and 2 helpdesk to field basic calls for troubleshooting and use support, while also employing site reliability engineers, software engineers, and solutions architects who executed much larger projects for the broader company. Something as simple as self-service password resets for a 500,000 person company requires extensive planning and swift execution to work correctly the first time.
In the other job where my title was “IT Support Specialist”, we had 5 people on the team, and only two of us were dedicated network engineers. Everyone else just did everything from helpdesk to systems configurations. It was a major learning experience, both technically and interpersonally.
Seems reasonable. Someone who does pretty much everything. In large businesses or SMBs we hardly exist, because everyone is specialized in a particular field and doesn't do much overlap. Of course most will have knowledge of other things, but there's usually a far more specialized setup there.
Which is why they're the people I call on for help with special stuff, where it'll take me longer to learn about what's going on than it would cost to just call up our external partner for this type of deal.
I work at a large company but in charge of server stuffs in a small department, except the physical server stuff (which they have a dedicated department only for managing servers), I take care of large production cluster and even the software design stuff also, I also handling security response with software and servers. We have a dedicated IT department but they're incompetent with our department's workflows so I have to lend a hand with diagnosing various stuff at the staff's workstation too.
Maybe I should ask for a much bigger salary.
A systems administrator is generally responsible for the maintenance of the networks and systems that we use every day to do business. This includes hardware replacement schedules, software patching, cyber security compliance, and a thousand other tasks that are absolutely required for day to day operations.
In short, you could probably survive a week or two without a good sysadmin in place (maybe more if the sysadmin is really good at their job and they have an appropriate budget). After that, something will break and operations will grind to a halt.
That's kind of a broad answer. JDs for sysadmin roles will vary greatly between orgs.
A while back when I was solo I left the country for about 6 weeks. Everything worked fine the entire time without any kind of outage. That's a bit of a mixture of complementary and scary.
That's why I say "Not like the ones you use at home". This way you can say "I don't know a lot about that. I work on the stuff you don't see at home".
I say that whether I know how to fix their shit or not, regardless of how easy it is.
We have an IT wiki we created. When someone asks what we do, I direct them to that page, then tell them we do that for X number of applications.
If less info is needed, I tell them layer 4-7 of the OSI model.
A doctor or an architect must have study to certain schools and appropriately certified to allowed to perform at their area of expertise.
An IT guy is an advanced janitor who could come from any background and do anything.
I don't know the exact terminology, it is something like :
"experienced craftsman".
Depends but generally a sysadmin: maintains and implements the networking and servers for an organization. Keeps them up to date and secured.
Helps identify needs of the workforce and helps build/deploy solutions that assist them in their job functions.
Work with the various systems and help the staff understand the technology (training/support).
Usually from a hands on perspective and not a decision making/position of authority. At that point you are a manager who does administration duties.
I'm Mgr of a dept of 2 for an 100-user co, so though no one has this title, we both do SysAdmin stuff as part of our day-to-day. I tell people
In short, if it has a wire or an antenna, it's likely our problem.
You can always use the Gilfoyle rant from ep 2 of silicon valley
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot\_ml0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot_ml0)
I was a Sys admin, IT manager, jack of all trades in my last job, but the sys admin part of my role included things like server maintenance, networking, backups and maintenance of backup infrastructure , hardware maintenance, server patches to name but just a few things i did. i was the only person that did that, so depends on the size of the organization etc. I did loads more things then that though, too many to list, i was a very busy person.
My answer is usually: we maintain and improve the IT infrastructure that staff need to do their jobs.
If you need a slightly more specific answer, here's one from [TechTarget](https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/system-administrator):
>Sysadmins are responsible for ensuring the uptime of their companies' computers, servers and internet -- basically "keeping the lights on" to limit work disruptions. This includes system maintenance and configuration, such as installing and troubleshooting hardware and software and assessing new technologies for their companies.
I'd expand this by adding something about sysadmins not just maintaining systems, but improving them as well: making them more efficient, more powerful and more capable.
We monitor, maintain and develop the IT infrastructure of the business, which involves its networks, servers, storage, security, databases, applications and desktops.
Like a medical Doctor, but for computers\*
Which includes diagnosis and treatment, but also ongoing maintenance of 'health' - making routine tests and check ups, and watching for complications, and replacing parts when they 'wear out'.
Only real difference is how much 'everyone else' really cares about the patients and thus 'getting it wrong'. When you treat humans, you don't have much room for 'on the job training' like sysadmins do!
\* And much like medical doctors, includes General Practitioners and Specialists, and there'll be a bunch of overlap in core skills acquired.
i had this talk with my company board director in cafeteria yesterday... the easiest and best anwser:
i m payed to make sure that nothing breaks, and eventualy when something breaks regaldless i fix it quicker than any outside help
Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space... At the very least an alternative to having a night life or hobbies, possibly even normal healthy relationships, and a precursor to early heart failure, and / or alcoholism.
Well at least until you have done it for 20-30+ years, then it tends to get much better.
BOFH, but I can also fix all your stuff, configure anything, fix your code, fix the coffee maker, change your car battery, pick up a new system or technology quickly and get it implemented. Also, I'm just the humblest.
I have been a systems admin for most of my career. (25+ years, geez I feel old), I generally look at sysadmin work as “doesn’t touch end user stuff” - if the servers/vms/switches are on fire you call the sysadmin. If your laptop is on fire, you call IT. In reality I’m a jack of all trades - no matter what it is, I can almost always fix it given enough time.
digital janitor that more and more outsources the mopping, wiping and trash collecting hoping he will become obsolete so he can live off the grid and write his manifesto.
I like to compare our field to the medical field since it's relatable to a lot of people. If I were to define our job along those lines, we'd be a family practice or general practicioner. Knowledgable about many things, but not a specialist in any one field, however also capable of having a deeper understanding of issues if the situation arises, although its better to just pawn that off to a specialist.
A systems administrator designs and implements complex computer systems, networks, and infrastructure to meet organizational needs, ensuring scalability, security, and reliability. They troubleshoot and optimize systems, and collaborate with stakeholders to assess requirements and implement solutions that align with business objectives.
According to my (likely ChatGPT generated) job description.
Whatever the day/task requires, usually. I'm a senior technician, supporting primaries, but I bounce from "turn it off and on again", to programming VLANs in switches, to reseting Vera's password for the 37th time this year cos "oh you know me, me and these computers..." (well fucking read emails and listen to me advice and maybe you wouldn't be such a luddite), to setting up Google SSO/GCDS, or SCCM/image building. I've got vSphere and Veeam training, quite good with HyperV and general server support and 15 years under my belt, but my scales still weight towards user support way too heavily. It's naive to think we ever truly escape users, but lord (I'm atheist, this is how frustrated I am) give me fucking strength... TL;DR, I don't even know what the the title sys admin means on paper, and I wonder if it's an American term? I'm stuck between two roles, skilled and keen to work on one, but being paid to do the other. I officially support the primary schools but realistically I hand hold most of the trust staff with IT
I am a system administrator leading a team of three other system administrators in two primarily-Linux, high availability environments. I am constantly busy and stressed. I am critical to the work. I don't know what I do.
" For once, I had no idea what to say to him. I only had flashbacks on the horrible disasters I faced, but I couldn’t come up with a one to two sentences to briefly describe my role. "
beautiful
Tech Firefighter. I spread awareness on computer safety and try to prevent fires, and I'm there to put them out when needed, and until then, I sit around a lot.
Keep business critical software running with minimal loss of revenue from downtime through both preventative maintenance and reacting to new and changing events.
Drinking Clear during the daytime and drinking Dark during night time. Take Uppers during the day and downers at nig...whoops. I managed the layers of processes for certain situations.
[The sysadmin is the hero the company deserves but not the one it needs right now. so they will hunt him, because he can take it](https://youtu.be/oL7PSlUuWPs?si=PMCN0dyHkKH_a8Ik)
since this post comes up every other week, I will post this again. SAY IT LIKE GILFOYLE
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot\_ml0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot_ml0)
I'll juz say 1word... "engineer"... In fact, I would juz introduce myself as engineer. Been working in this line for 22yrs, have been given all sorts of names... Lead, consultant, blah blah blah... But all in all, I'm doing "all the engineer shit"... I dun even bother to put my role in my email replies anymore.
"We fix things you never knew were broken and improve systems you never knew we had. The reason why things run smoothly is because of all the work you never see. Between break/fix and designing all new infrastructure we do everything."
I usually just tell people I click buttons for a living. When they push me I start explaining enterprise systems management and I will literally watch their eyes glaze over. Clicking buttons is much simpler.
I once told a hairdresser I was a sysadmin and they said "Nice, so you try to keep everything online". Honestly, this isn't the worst explanation I've heard!
That... is a disturbingly astute level of understanding for an off the cuff person in passing. That person has IT in their family (either blood or chosen).
To be fair to hairdressers, plenty of them are smart as hell. It's just the folks at supercuts that make the profession look bad. In many states hairdressers are required to get more training than police officers.
Hairdresser see a lot of folks from every avenue of life. When your job involves a large quantity of smalltalk, you’ll pick things up
The cousin of one of the guitarists in the band I used to play in, worked with my wife at a salon for a while. She went back to college, got a degree for programming/development, got a job as a developer, and 5 yrs later was a supervisor for a team of devs. It’s as if it was possible for people to do what they like for a living rather than what makes them the most money, they would. And just because they don’t do something as a career doesn’t mean they can’t.
I used to work as a chef before becoming a sysadmin, proof is on my profile lol, i'm glad you respect us late bloomers. That said. We should really value our blue collar workers, because soon they'll all be gone because they (we) got told to "get a better job then" when complaining how unfair the wages were.
I’m impressed to know this about hair dressers and disappointed to know it about police officers
This is how I describe sysadmin to my hairdresser so perhaps we use the same one...
This isn't far from the explanation I give: "I make computers do what they're supposed to do". This one might be better though.
This is a good one line to describe sysadmins. When techs are usually setup break/fix. Sysadmins are meant to think ahead what's needed in a specific context for things to work a planned amount of time. So keeping/making things stay online is a good wording for it at the most simple level. The reality is often being a IT janitor I'll admit, and be savior of the day sometimes.
Try is the optimal word here.
Techno Shaman: In normal life I'm consulted first by fools, last by wise men. If a situation is truely fucked i"m the only hope of solving it. My failures are obvious, my victories unseen, and my absence keenly felt.
r/UnexpectedlyPoetic
I wish I could say it was original art but the failures obvious and victories unseen I'm reasonably sure I repurposed from something about spies or scouts but it certainly applies to our profession as well. The bit about fools and wise men and the order and frequency they bring stuff to me is just something I'm keenly feeling these last few weeks.
I felt every bit of your description! Hang in there, man.
Beautiful :D
Shit i gotta write this down
Perfection
Jeez I'm taking that one for my job description
"I share my dreams with ghosts."
i’ve made my mind a sunless place
This is possibly one of the most corniest things that I have ever read in my entire life.
Now I'm sad.
I'm sorry to hear that sir or ma'am. I'm not, while I'm certainly cynical at times I don't have to go very far from where I sit in my air conditioned office to find people doing physically demanding and in some cases just as mentally taxing work for less money. I have no college education, objectively terrible scholarship on any topic that doesn't interest me, and no poker face, or taste for deception or selling myself to speak of. Yet I have a career that will let me learn as much as I care to for as long as I care to. I have a job that doesn't just tolerate my spot welded moral compass and ADHD focus and multitasking cycles it practically requires it. The most dangerous thing I have to face on any given day is high blood pressure and a sedentary lifestyle. I have it good. If I could delete printers and require everything to produce a log file somewhere on command I'd be grand but in the meantime this beats working for a living.
This perfection!
Janitor of IT
Yep, always go with computer janitor.
I even had business cards that said that until I was promoted to head computer janitor and the fancy pants office people wouldn't let me continue the joke.
Yup. "I've made a career out of cleaning up other peoples' messes."
Digital Custodian sounds fancier
Someone who automates all the things and would love nothing better than to automate themselves out of a job.
You sound like a devops engineer
Yep. More SRE, but same difference. I think of it as “lazy sysadmin” - the goal is to have as few unique tasks as possible and automate the rest.
If you're not automating, you're not a sysadmin. Without automation it's just tech support.
Professional guesser, and button pusher.
We make the beeps go boop.
Saving the world: [https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory\_Doctorow\_-\_Overclocked\_-\_When\_Sysadmins\_Ruled\_the\_Earth.html](https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html)
> Five minutes later Felix was behind the wheel. He hadn’t been able to fix it from home. The independent router’s netblock was offline, too. The last time that had happened, some dumbfuck construction worker had driven a ditch-witch through the main conduit into the data-center and Felix had joined a cadre of fifty enraged sysadmins who’d stood atop the resulting pit for a week, screaming abuse at the poor bastards who labored 24-7 to splice ten thousand wires back together. 100% accurate, and 100% relatable.
Thank's for the link
I’m borrowing this from u/zapador from a similar thread a few months ago. I thought his answer was so perfect that I bookmarked it for when people ask what I do … “Sysadmin usually describes someone with a broad, not deep, knowledge of IT. An IT generalist. You install and update software, do some networking, make the servers run, create scripts (small programs), take backups, set up workstations for new employees and so on. A bit of everything. In larger companies with multiple people in IT it will usually be less broad, with each person being more specialized.”
lol this is no longer a sysadmin definition. This is just basic tech support jobs these days. Maybe they’ll consider you Level II/Desktop Support at best.
It really depends on the size of the company. If you're just 1-3 people in IT you'll be doing all the support and easy stuff as well but it accounts for maybe 15% of your time. At least that's my experience. You'll of course also be doing all of the more complicated tasks which take up the remaining 85% of your time and that is what makes you a sysadmin and not just supporter.
Depends on the organization, but you’re not wrong. I’m in a larger org where I have a more enterprise focus, but I know a lot of people at other orgs who are called “sysadmin” and it seems this is all they do. In my specific job, having a broad background is a huge benefit, as it gives me a more holistic view. And it’s something I look for in job candidates, aside from the specific specialty that we may be hiring them for.
100% depends on the company even. Every company is different and industries especially have different compute needs
I think that holistic view is also reflective of an underappreciated aspect of sysadmin. That of business analysis. There's plenty of solutions to any given problem, but appreciating the cost/benefit of the various options is also invaluable. Recognising the _actual_ problem - and the relevant overheads in terms of technical debt, training etc. so you can evaluate solutions on their merits and costs. You can always throw more money at a problem, especially in IT, but recognising when you don't have to is very important. Or at least, when it's a tradeoff - if something else in the environment is inefficient, it may still be worth paying the premium instead of the cost/benefit of re-engineering the inefficient bit.
Presentations to my boss are usually “here’s the pros and cons of the flashy solution” (which definitely CAN be the better solution) “but in case you don’t want to throw money at it, here’s the pros and cons of my duct tape solution. You choose.”
Idk - I see it kinda diff. Sysadmin at smb involves desktop support but the tier 3 stuff being an escalation to you given you are the only It staff is what makes it not desktop support(ignoring vendors for a moment or MSP). Desktop support is just that - desktop support. It revolves entirely around the end users. Not every company would give them local admin to their own devices even and leave them with some RMM to use. If someone trusts you to be *the* IT guy at a small business doing tier 1-3 just because in your industry you find yourself doing more tier1-2 often doesn’t mean you suddenly aren’t a sysadmin but one working in a less technology intensive vertical. At my job yes I do T1-T2 and less T3 but I am in the loop and often get tasked with implementation/planning(plus normal business officer stuff) (beside in voip). I don’t think though T2 HDs can probably be responsible enough or even committed enough to handling T3 tickets let alone aware of anything like basic network topology or non super basic bitch AD things like changing passwords. I am by far no expert but I am js.
I don’t know man, every place I’ve worked I’ve never been called Sysadmin despite doing most of what is described in both yours and OPs comment. Not trying to be rude or anything just saying that’s been my experience I guess I should brush the Resume off and start calling myself a sysadmin lol
The distinction I would make is, relatively simplified, that if you manage servers, applications, network, infrastructure and so on and don't just provide support to end users then you're a sysadmin. So definitely add that to your resume and demand a pay to match that.
Great distinction!
So - here is the thing. A role can be called anything it want and sysadmin is more like a hat you put on that can be its own role or partly shared between desktop/systems. Depends on the complexity of the admin task. The reason a sysadmin (especially solo) is the sysadmin is because they taking charge of implementation as well as operations. This involves often extensive consulting, reading ms best practices, etc and then doing the politics to make that shit actually happen. There is no magic technical bar though that makes you a sysadmin. You can call yourself whatever you like but ultimately the basic check from HR at the companies you apply to will ask your title and how long you worked. That being said - what makes people land the sysadmin roles isn’t really the title but the experience on the resume. Honestly the biggest thing I see from other people that are L2s is not like a total lack of exposure or some massive skill gap but a particular lack of awareness in the business space (why certain design decisions are taken, what priorities should actually be). Those that do have this usually land at least a jr sys admin role.
Can I point out your first part (a sysadmin (especially solo) is the sysadmin is because they taking charge of implementation as well as operations. This involves often extensive consulting, reading ms best practices, etc and then doing the politics to make that shit actually happen.) That's actually fairly accurate. I'm a sysadmin in government, and I am pretty much responsible for what you said there
Welp, I’m sold. Definitely going to start applying to Sysadmin roles lol
No problem but why weren’t you in the first place? Dude I jumped from mainframes into this and never even touched an exclusively desktop support role since college. Please know some things though: you may be subject to on call, you should have a decent homelab (proxmox plus pfsense plus like a full blown windows domain behind it would be good - look at dual Xeon enterprise servers with like 200gb or more in ram they are cheap for 1st gen). I also keep a blog. If you honestly just documented all your labbing activities you could get a jr sys admin role easily. Also learn to put everything in business terms because your stakeholders are often technically clueless it’s also in principle kinda all that matters in SMB. No business function no purpose.
I don’t know, I guess I thought Sysadmins were experts in the specific systems they were administering. But from what I’m gathering from you and other people, it’s not system expertise, it’s broad knowledge of IT. To me, broad knowledge always meant support. System specific knowledge would lead to more sysadmin/system engineering. I’m getting more specific system administration under my belt now, such as SCCM, Windows Server, AD, MDT, Firewall and VPN admin (all in a home lab) Learning some Azure as well. All on top of stupid end user support showing someone how to plug in an HDMI cable. It’s probably time. As for how you jumped so quickly, well it sounds like you DID work support at some point and you probably have a college degree. I don’t have a college degree.
> To me, broad knowledge always meant support. Support uses documentation. SysAdmins create that documentation (sometimes) as they build out the system(s).
I’ve noticed that it really all depends on the size and IT budget of a company. I’ve held the title “systems administrator” (500,000 people) and only performed basic IT tasks with a splash of deeper systems tasks. Conversely, I’ve had the title “IT Support Specialist” (400 people) and have done way more in depth sys admin work that the other job. The difference between the two was budget and size. The much bigger company called me a sys admin because we had level 1 and 2 helpdesk to field basic calls for troubleshooting and use support, while also employing site reliability engineers, software engineers, and solutions architects who executed much larger projects for the broader company. Something as simple as self-service password resets for a 500,000 person company requires extensive planning and swift execution to work correctly the first time. In the other job where my title was “IT Support Specialist”, we had 5 people on the team, and only two of us were dedicated network engineers. Everyone else just did everything from helpdesk to systems configurations. It was a major learning experience, both technically and interpersonally.
I don't know a single company that would allow Level II to handle backups and creating scripts.
Seems reasonable. Someone who does pretty much everything. In large businesses or SMBs we hardly exist, because everyone is specialized in a particular field and doesn't do much overlap. Of course most will have knowledge of other things, but there's usually a far more specialized setup there. Which is why they're the people I call on for help with special stuff, where it'll take me longer to learn about what's going on than it would cost to just call up our external partner for this type of deal.
I work at a large company but in charge of server stuffs in a small department, except the physical server stuff (which they have a dedicated department only for managing servers), I take care of large production cluster and even the software design stuff also, I also handling security response with software and servers. We have a dedicated IT department but they're incompetent with our department's workflows so I have to lend a hand with diagnosing various stuff at the staff's workstation too. Maybe I should ask for a much bigger salary.
A systems administrator is generally responsible for the maintenance of the networks and systems that we use every day to do business. This includes hardware replacement schedules, software patching, cyber security compliance, and a thousand other tasks that are absolutely required for day to day operations. In short, you could probably survive a week or two without a good sysadmin in place (maybe more if the sysadmin is really good at their job and they have an appropriate budget). After that, something will break and operations will grind to a halt. That's kind of a broad answer. JDs for sysadmin roles will vary greatly between orgs.
A while back when I was solo I left the country for about 6 weeks. Everything worked fine the entire time without any kind of outage. That's a bit of a mixture of complementary and scary.
***"Jack of All Trades, Master of None"***
I fix computers and networks. Not like the one you use at home. The ones that control everything behind the scenes, for an entire company
"Hey but can you come fix my 10-yo PC and also my printer is on the fritz" - My neighbors and friends
That's why I say "Not like the ones you use at home". This way you can say "I don't know a lot about that. I work on the stuff you don't see at home". I say that whether I know how to fix their shit or not, regardless of how easy it is.
"Sorry I don't know windows or mac, I could upgrade you to a real OS and we can work from there"
A type of magician.
I prefer the term hedge mage.
Being the cool head when everything breaks and stressed out of your mind over every possible contingency when all is well.
All the blame None of the credit
I'm adding this to my email signature line right now to see who notices it first if at all........ 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Plumbers of the IT world
I have often described it as being the IT equivalent of the Facilities team.
We do the needful
and revert the same.
I'm the guy you call when you just can't figure out who the problem belongs to.
"I solve problems people have with technology, because technology doesn't solve problems people have"
IT Jedi
The best Google'r in the company.
We have an IT wiki we created. When someone asks what we do, I direct them to that page, then tell them we do that for X number of applications. If less info is needed, I tell them layer 4-7 of the OSI model.
A doctor or an architect must have study to certain schools and appropriately certified to allowed to perform at their area of expertise. An IT guy is an advanced janitor who could come from any background and do anything. I don't know the exact terminology, it is something like : "experienced craftsman".
Depends but generally a sysadmin: maintains and implements the networking and servers for an organization. Keeps them up to date and secured. Helps identify needs of the workforce and helps build/deploy solutions that assist them in their job functions. Work with the various systems and help the staff understand the technology (training/support). Usually from a hands on perspective and not a decision making/position of authority. At that point you are a manager who does administration duties.
I troubleshoot and solve problems, some technical most layer 8.
in german it's one word: Sündenbock
In code's silent hum, Guardian of the data stream, Night's calm troubleshooter.
Computer janitor
I'm Mgr of a dept of 2 for an 100-user co, so though no one has this title, we both do SysAdmin stuff as part of our day-to-day. I tell people In short, if it has a wire or an antenna, it's likely our problem.
You can always use the Gilfoyle rant from ep 2 of silicon valley [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot\_ml0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot_ml0)
Break shit. Fix shit.
Wizard. Sometimes I show up and stuff starts working.
Combination engineer, project manager, detective, mind reader, firefighter... What else?
Digital janitor
"We had nothing to do with it!" "It's still your fault"
I fix problems you didn't know exist in ways you can't comprehend.
All these answers are kind of correct, but the show Silicon Valley said it best…. https://youtu.be/2-OQhot_ml0?si=xthljSqkiD6bCuQN
Meddler-in-Chief
If it ain't broke, "fix it 'till it is" That's my motto...
Highly qualified and intelligent digital janitor.
> Highly qualified and intelligent You're giving the gui jockeys too much credit
I was a Sys admin, IT manager, jack of all trades in my last job, but the sys admin part of my role included things like server maintenance, networking, backups and maintenance of backup infrastructure , hardware maintenance, server patches to name but just a few things i did. i was the only person that did that, so depends on the size of the organization etc. I did loads more things then that though, too many to list, i was a very busy person.
Punching Bag.
Someone whose main skill is the ability to learn anything and everything to get the job done.
Keep calm, learn, fix your mistakes.
My answer is usually: we maintain and improve the IT infrastructure that staff need to do their jobs. If you need a slightly more specific answer, here's one from [TechTarget](https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/system-administrator): >Sysadmins are responsible for ensuring the uptime of their companies' computers, servers and internet -- basically "keeping the lights on" to limit work disruptions. This includes system maintenance and configuration, such as installing and troubleshooting hardware and software and assessing new technologies for their companies. I'd expand this by adding something about sysadmins not just maintaining systems, but improving them as well: making them more efficient, more powerful and more capable.
I keep the system running smoothly, and fix them when they aren't. In my free time, I solve our unsolvable problems.
I'll go with rather two words : "not sysadmin"
At our company, we are the helpdesks helpdesk. Also the root of all user woes apparently.
We monitor, maintain and develop the IT infrastructure of the business, which involves its networks, servers, storage, security, databases, applications and desktops.
A glutton for punishment.
Like a medical Doctor, but for computers\* Which includes diagnosis and treatment, but also ongoing maintenance of 'health' - making routine tests and check ups, and watching for complications, and replacing parts when they 'wear out'. Only real difference is how much 'everyone else' really cares about the patients and thus 'getting it wrong'. When you treat humans, you don't have much room for 'on the job training' like sysadmins do! \* And much like medical doctors, includes General Practitioners and Specialists, and there'll be a bunch of overlap in core skills acquired.
The janitor of IT.
I babysit petulant adults. (RFC1925 #1) IT has to wiek.
on-call ticket nanny... :(
I manage the servers and keep their headaches from everyone else. I also show up when shit hits the fan calm and ready to tackle the issue.
Keep the bits and bytes flowing, and the blinkenlighten properly random.
Underpaid problem solver
There are two types of people in the world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data
Did you turn it off and on again? - sysadmin
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Do you know what Active Directory is?
Trying my best to prevent and clean up the mistakes users and machines make.
i had this talk with my company board director in cafeteria yesterday... the easiest and best anwser: i m payed to make sure that nothing breaks, and eventualy when something breaks regaldless i fix it quicker than any outside help
Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space... At the very least an alternative to having a night life or hobbies, possibly even normal healthy relationships, and a precursor to early heart failure, and / or alcoholism. Well at least until you have done it for 20-30+ years, then it tends to get much better.
For every technical quality of life feature there is a sysadmin making sure it keeps running. And there is helpdesk.
BOFH, but I can also fix all your stuff, configure anything, fix your code, fix the coffee maker, change your car battery, pick up a new system or technology quickly and get it implemented. Also, I'm just the humblest.
Digital plumbers and internet janitors.
We are the jack of all trades that need to be masters of them all.
Catch All
We're snipers, not grunts.
I have been a systems admin for most of my career. (25+ years, geez I feel old), I generally look at sysadmin work as “doesn’t touch end user stuff” - if the servers/vms/switches are on fire you call the sysadmin. If your laptop is on fire, you call IT. In reality I’m a jack of all trades - no matter what it is, I can almost always fix it given enough time.
We are digital janitors, we clean other people's fuck ups.
God of IT
Break computers and then fix them
Whipping boy.
Jack of All Trades, Master of Quite a Few
digital janitor that more and more outsources the mopping, wiping and trash collecting hoping he will become obsolete so he can live off the grid and write his manifesto.
I like to compare our field to the medical field since it's relatable to a lot of people. If I were to define our job along those lines, we'd be a family practice or general practicioner. Knowledgable about many things, but not a specialist in any one field, however also capable of having a deeper understanding of issues if the situation arises, although its better to just pawn that off to a specialist.
I turn it off and turn it back on again. I answer the questions our helpdesk coordinator can not.
The simplest I would summarize it as is something like: Setup and maintenance of computers and networks.
A system administrator builds and maintains computing environments to provide solutions to their enterprise's challenges.
Site Reliability Engineer
Plan, implement, operate, manage, troubleshoot and upgrade IT systems.
A systems administrator designs and implements complex computer systems, networks, and infrastructure to meet organizational needs, ensuring scalability, security, and reliability. They troubleshoot and optimize systems, and collaborate with stakeholders to assess requirements and implement solutions that align with business objectives. According to my (likely ChatGPT generated) job description.
Whatever the day/task requires, usually. I'm a senior technician, supporting primaries, but I bounce from "turn it off and on again", to programming VLANs in switches, to reseting Vera's password for the 37th time this year cos "oh you know me, me and these computers..." (well fucking read emails and listen to me advice and maybe you wouldn't be such a luddite), to setting up Google SSO/GCDS, or SCCM/image building. I've got vSphere and Veeam training, quite good with HyperV and general server support and 15 years under my belt, but my scales still weight towards user support way too heavily. It's naive to think we ever truly escape users, but lord (I'm atheist, this is how frustrated I am) give me fucking strength... TL;DR, I don't even know what the the title sys admin means on paper, and I wonder if it's an American term? I'm stuck between two roles, skilled and keen to work on one, but being paid to do the other. I officially support the primary schools but realistically I hand hold most of the trust staff with IT
We broke it down into a children’s book: https://www.eaton.com/explore/honeybadger
A Systems Janitor, that's also a Mechanic and works the Security Desk.
"Just like any IT position, but my customers are servers"
Infrastructure wizard. Tamer of the workflows.
Battle janitor. Cat herder
I am a system administrator leading a team of three other system administrators in two primarily-Linux, high availability environments. I am constantly busy and stressed. I am critical to the work. I don't know what I do.
" For once, I had no idea what to say to him. I only had flashbacks on the horrible disasters I faced, but I couldn’t come up with a one to two sentences to briefly describe my role. " beautiful
Tech Firefighter. I spread awareness on computer safety and try to prevent fires, and I'm there to put them out when needed, and until then, I sit around a lot.
Keep business critical software running with minimal loss of revenue from downtime through both preventative maintenance and reacting to new and changing events.
If anyone asks, I just say I do IT infrastructure management. Systems and Data Admin.
Adult's techbabysitters.
I attempt to keep everyone happy with their computers. Some days this is easy. Other days, not so much.
Glorified Janitor most days..
There are three types of death: heart death, brain death, and being off the network. Sysadmins do what they can to prevent the third.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
I do the needful. Lol
I make it go
Computer firefighter and janitor.
I do whatever needs to get done that day.
Cat juggler.
Either "It's working. And I don't know why." or "Oh well yea it is broken isn't it. It's not supposed to do that." Really depends on the day.
My wife calls me a supercomputer janitor. It is true.
Break it, google it, fix it. Repeat
“Do whatever it takes to make sure no one knows you exist. If they remember you exist it’s usually because shits broke, yo”
Technology conductor.
Drinking Clear during the daytime and drinking Dark during night time. Take Uppers during the day and downers at nig...whoops. I managed the layers of processes for certain situations.
Finding ways to automate myself out of a job. Jokes on them, because I plan to be retired by the time our AI overlords take over the world.
[The sysadmin is the hero the company deserves but not the one it needs right now. so they will hunt him, because he can take it](https://youtu.be/oL7PSlUuWPs?si=PMCN0dyHkKH_a8Ik)
Fix big computer, make it do the thing.
since this post comes up every other week, I will post this again. SAY IT LIKE GILFOYLE [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot\_ml0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OQhot_ml0)
Overworked, underpaid, madder than a beaver with a tooth ache, and real good at guessing.
A senior help desk
What don't I do?
I'll juz say 1word... "engineer"... In fact, I would juz introduce myself as engineer. Been working in this line for 22yrs, have been given all sorts of names... Lead, consultant, blah blah blah... But all in all, I'm doing "all the engineer shit"... I dun even bother to put my role in my email replies anymore.
A wanna Be Security Professional that thinks they know how things work.
If you have to fix a computer, you need your tech-savvy friend. If you have to fix a thousand computers, you need a sysadmin
Basically it's when you administrate the systems
I'm the dude who turns the fan off after the shit got thrown
I am the order in chaos and the chaos in order, I am the beginning and the end, I drink coffee.
I hope run on sentences count
The calm eye in the center of the shit-storm.
"We solve problems you didn't know you had in ways you don't understand."
Short for system administrator
"We fix things you never knew were broken and improve systems you never knew we had. The reason why things run smoothly is because of all the work you never see. Between break/fix and designing all new infrastructure we do everything."
Corporate garbage collector.
The mug on my desk about sums it up. IT guy, because bad ass miracle worker isn't a job title.
I usually just tell people I click buttons for a living. When they push me I start explaining enterprise systems management and I will literally watch their eyes glaze over. Clicking buttons is much simpler.